2012 Review: Furniture company expands, moves to Stayton

Dec. 29, 2012

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Written by

Dee Moore

Statesman Journal

Workers assemble parts for furniture on a production line at Mastercraft Furniture, Inc.'s new plant in Stayton in April 2012. / Statesman Journal file photo

Year in review

Join us as we look back on the remarkable people (and animals), memorable moments and red letter days of 2012. This seven-day report is organized around a series of themes: Wednesday: Big Events Thursday: Animals Friday: Crime Today: Business Sunday: Inspiration Monday: Bad actors Tuesday: Changing of the guard

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STAYTON — When Marty Olson decided to move his business, Mastercraft Furniture, to Stayton, he wasn’t just choosing a building that could meet its needs. He was also choosing a community.

Mastercraft is a family owned wholesale furniture manufacturer founded in 1984. It makes fabric-covered furniture such as couches and chairs and currently has a contract to produce a proprietary line for the Swedish retailer IKEA.

The company went through two-year vetting to get the contract, awarded in 2012, and got funding from the Oregon Lottery.

With the contract the company grew 600 percent. Olson needed more space and a larger workforce. Mastercraft moved from Wilsonville to its current 200,000-square-foot facility on Wilco Road in April. The company received a $125,000 forgivable loan from the Governor’s Strategic Reserve Fund, which helped finance the facility and workforce training costs.

The Stayton community’s reaction to the relocation has been overwhelming, Olson said, and it’s been good for job seekers, too. He brought 100 workers with the move and hired 30 people from the Stayton area right after the move. He has added 40 more since and plans to hire more in the first quarter of 2013.

“We’ve been growing at such a rapid pace. We’re just trying to keep up. We want to grow into the business responsibly,” he said. “The great thing is that it’s available to us.”

The furniture maker will be looking at picking up several new projects in 2013, and Olson is looking at new ways to manufacture products and new ways to train employees so they can keep up with global competition.

“We are having to re-think our manufacturing processes,” he said.

Olson plans to go to Poland next year to look at manufacturing there to see if Europeans know something he doesn’t.

He has some reachable goals. The company currently manufactures 450 pieces of furniture a day, and he’d like to see that grow to 600 by this time next year. He also hopes to grow to a workforce of 200.

“What we’re doing is bringing manufacturing to the United States,” Olson said. “A large percentage of it has gone offshore to China and to Europe.”

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